Tuesday, October 28, 2008

How the hell we missed this story, I don't know. Singing the anthem for World Series game 5 was none other than John Oates, who filled in for an ill Daryl Hall. Note the video link also on this page; not a bad job, Johnny! (Although I think you said "What so proudly we hailed as the twilight's last gleaming--oh well.)

Hall and Oates are seminal figures for at least three of the seven Sons, having listened to multiple soulful tracks from "the number one selling duo of all time" while on a baseball roadtrip (which included Philadelphia, among other ballparks). And after firing up the entire H+O anthology, all the roadtrippers came to the conclusion: what the world needs is less Hall, and more Oates.

Are we Out of Touch? Maybe. Say It Isn't So, some of you will say. But there was a M-E-T-H-O-D to our madness, and it was great to see MLB give John Oates the entire stage last night (frankly, it was probably too damn cold for anyone, let alone the beanstalk that is Daryl Hall):

PHILADELPHIA -- Daryl Hall was scheduled to perform the national anthem prior to Game 5 of the World Series Monday night, but after he came down with the flu, he turned to his longtime friend and bandmate John Oates for a pinch-hit appearance, so to speak.

Oates, one half of the hit band Hall and Oates that reached its peak in the 1970s and '80s, lives in Aspen year-round and received a frantic call from their manager around 8 a.m. Monday morning, pleading with the singer to hop on the first flight to Philadelphia to sing the anthem.

"At 8 o'clock, my wife starts shaking me and goes, 'You've got to go to Philadelphia," Oates said, an hour before he was scheduled to perform. "I thought she was kidding me. I thought she was just trying to get me out of bed. Then she said, 'No, no, Daryl got sick and you have to sing the national anthem at the World Series. I'm like really? I said, 'OK.'"

Turns out, that was easier said than done. Every flight out of Aspen connects in Denver, and his flight, which was scheduled to leave Denver at noon, was delayed.

"I said, 'That's it, I'm not going to make it,'" he said. "We were cutting it close as it was, I was supposed to arrive at 6. Then I saw a flight that was leaving in 20 minutes for Philadelphia. I said, 'Can I get on?'"

There was one seat left -- a middle seat, no less -- and Oates pounced.

"I guess it was meant to be," he said.

John Oates braved the snow of Aspen and the rains of Philadelphia, five hours and 34 minutes of flying (assuming he was on the 8.10am connecting through Denver to Philly on United), and POUNCED ON A MIDDLE SEAT no less (which must have been on the DEN-PHL leg, since the first leg was a puddlejumper CRJ-700 that had no middle seats). [Now get those visions of a pouncing Oates, curly hair and all, out of your head.]

This means, while Daryl Hall lounges around on a beach with a unbrella-adorned drink in his hand, John Oates is flying coach, for baseball. What an American! What a patriot! What a baseball fan!